“The Conners” head to off-net in 2024 thanks to Lionsgate

Subsidiary Dembar-Mercury to handle domestic sales

Also: Big Bang Theory reruns shift to WGN next month

[Editor’s Note: This post was updated August 22. See below.]

If you forgotten about ABC’s The Conners, well…it’s still around – long enough for it to now enter off-network syndication. 

Lionsgate announced Wednesday it has acquired the rights to past and future episodes of Roseanne sequel The Conners, making the series available to stations and streaming outlets for fall 2024. The deal is in conjunction with Werner Entertainment – the company who also produced the original Roseanne sitcom for nine seasons and is one of the last independent shops in Hollywood. Lionsgate will handle Subscription-Video-On-Demand (SVOD), Advertising-Video-On-Demand (AVOD), basic cable, and Free-Advertiser-Supported-Television (FAST) rights while subsidiary Debmar-Mercury will sell The Conners in traditional syndication to local stations. 

Dembar-Mercury has handled off-network syndication sales for programs such as South Park, The Dead Zone, Tyler’s Perry House Of Payne, and Are We There Yet in the past and currently syndicates the first-run Family Feud and Sherri. 

“In the tradition of some of the most successful, longest-running multi-cam sitcoms, The Conners promises to be a great addition to TV [station] lineups, and will offer a proven competitive advantage to broadcasters for years to come,” said Debmar-Mercury Co-Presidents Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus, both longtime veterans of the syndication business. 

Once the bread-and-butter of local stations’ lineup, the pipeline for off-net sitcoms has dried up in recent years thanks to a lack of product as the number of sitcoms have plunged over the years. Stations also abandoned the off-network sitcom business for the most part to air more local news and first-run programming. The original Roseanne was part of that hysteria in the early 1990s as Viacom racked up a surprisingly low $1.5 million per-episode from stations in its first cycle for a 1992 debut (not including barter ad sales revenue) despite being one of the top-rated shows on television. After Viacom merged with Paramount in 1994, original producer Carsey-Werner recaptured syndication rights in its second cycle for sale beginning in September 1998.

No word on what terms The Conners would be sold on, but it’s likely to be sold for cash with at least two minutes of barter spots to be sold to national advertisers. 

The Conners had a checkered history but remained a constant performer for ABC, averaging five million viewers a week. Roseanne made a grand return to television in 2018 with most of the original cast and was the highest-rated show on television at one point until series star Roseanne Barr made a series of racist tweets targeting former President Obama cabinet member Valerie Jarrett. ABC immediately canceled the show and dumped Barr, but later retooled it as The Conners, killing off Roseanne’s character (from an opioid addiction.)

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. off-network sitcom The Big Bang Theory – who features Oak Park native and Roseanne alum Johnny Galecki, is changing stations in several markets as Nexstar picked up the rights for its third syndication cycle of the former CBS show in several markets as WGN-TV begins airing the show on September 4 at 7 and 7:30 p.m., according to a local promo the station ran. Big Bang was originally acquired by the Fox-owned stations for airing beginning in 2011 and currently airs in prime access (6-7 p.m.) on WFLD-TV and Sundays in prime-time on WPWR-TV. With Fox not renewing the show, the program is moving to Nexstar stations in other markets including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and Washington D.C.; to CBS-owned independent stations in Seattle and San Francisco; and Hearst’s WKCF in Orlando. 

WFLD is replacing Big Bang with Family Feud at 6 and TMZ at 6:30 p.m., respectively.